


Wings of Fire: The Wicked Tomb

by Deepclaw



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Gen, M/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepclaw/pseuds/Deepclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been two months since the destruction of their home and those NightWings who dishonestly pledged allegiance to Queen Glory have gotten restless. There have been rumors circulating for weeks of a Plan B to establish the NightWing empire, but no amount of spying has revealed just what that plan is...</p><p>One night, a group of NightWing radicals, led by General Rook, surge passed their invisible RainWing watchguards and take to the skies. A small patrol of RainWings immediately respond and follow them into the wind.</p><p>Taro is one of these RainWings, and once he reaches the edge of the rainforest, he makes a selfless decision that pushes him on a journey to the farthest northern peak of the Pyrrhian map to save his rainforest from yet another dark NightWing secret... </p><p>The Wicked Tomb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Wings of Fire and its world and characters are owned by Tui T Sutherland. Highly recommended book series for all ages! Original Characters in this story are mine, but everything else belongs to Ms. Sutherland and Scholastic.
> 
> And thank you so much to The0dd0ne and atlaspyro for your beta help! :D
> 
> (( This fic takes place between Books 5 and 6, a few months before Moonwatcher leaves for Jade Mountain. It in no way intersects with canon material, but where relevant it refers to both past and concurrent canon events, and canon characters. ))

      The air was dry but crackled with energy. In the dim flickering light that the overhead clouds cast on the nighttime world below, Taro had to wonder if chasing a dozen Nightwings across the rainforest was the stupidest thing a small team of under trained, mentally scarred RainWings could do.  At his wing tips Razz and Filo kept pace, the only indication of their presence the occasional shimmer as their scales shifted to match the changing light levels around them. Up ahead, Jenjar took the lead, also invisible save for the steady beat of bright orange that shot across the stretched webs of her wings. It was a form of communication the General had taught them, modeled after what little she knew of her own tribe’s underwater language.

       So far there’d been little reason to use that language except when guarding the perimeter of the NightWing camp. Now, however, Taro had to admire just how effective it was. Even in the dark, the bright signal up ahead told him and his wingmates where to fly and to hold position as they were, and the dark mass of wings in the distance couldn’t possibly see it. And yet the paranoia induced thought that somehow they could was what put the tingle in his spine. Part of him was excited that this was his first real taste of being a…well, something like a soldier, though no one had called RainWings that so far. He felt like he was a part of something important, fighting against the steadily growing winds of an oncoming storm to stop an enemy. He was on a _mission_!

       But a larger part of him was terrified. He and his team weren’t prepared. They were outnumbered, even outclassed, and the dragon leading them was notably impulsive, sometimes irrational. Taro knew her from before, but she wasn’t the same since the NightWings stole her away. He knew he was different too. He’d been one of those who had carried on unconcerned with his tribemates’ mysterious absences. He’d thought they’d be back of their own free will. There had been no reason to worry until he’d been taken too. Now, he worked harder than the others, trained with more vigor, and fought with more passion in the sparring rings. But Jenjar was something else. She’d gone from a joyous yellow-green flower arranger to an angry dragoness of orange and flaming red. Her colors hardly shifted anymore, and her once sky blue eyes were a cornflower dusk. It was painful to see the Change so obvious in someone else.

      _I wonder if anyone sees it in me,_ he thought, considering that he hadn’t really known any of the others until they were shackled together in a smelly sulfur dungeon.

       Thunder clapped again and the strongest gust they’d had to face yet rushed upwards into their wings, veering the RainWing troop off course. They managed to stabilize again, scales lit with subtle symbols as they fell in line, but when Taro narrowed his eyes and peered into the distance he saw that the NightWings were further away.

       Suddenly, lightning crashed, searing an arc towards a large crooked tree not so far from his squad’s position, and Taro was momentarily blinded. A droplet of rain fell, smacking his snout with a jolt of unexpected cool, and then the sky fell like a waterfall. They were drenched before he could blink the water from his eyes and Jenjar shouted something he couldn’t make out from somewhere below him. Razz repeated her orders from his right.

       “She said we can’t fly in this! Get to the trees!” she yelled, and Taro didn’t bother trying to find her in the deluge. He spiraled for the canopy and nestled himself in the upper branches of a banyan. He paused to get his bearings.

       “Taro, over here!” Filo called from the dark, and in another flash of lightning Taro could see the seafoam RainWing under clumps of bananas in the neighboring tree. He joined Filo with a well aimed leap.

       “You see where Jenjar went?” Taro yelled. His own voice was swallowed by the loud rustling around them but his companion seemed to hear.

        “Yeah, just north. Follow me!” Filo replied with an erratic nod.

       With a twist, they flipped tail first into waiting vines and swung their way deeper into the vegetation. The rain pattered continuously around them, concentrated by the leaves above into small rivers and cascades that fell from branch to gnarled branch. Taro splashed his way through them, bouncing towards a waiting tree trunk and clawing his way up with curved talons. The trees here were massive, and the gaps between sometimes wide. These gaps were spanned by long natural bridges of vines, some of which held plants that were usually found closer to the ground. Silent as an owl he soared into such a suspended bush of tangberries and stopped to wait. Filo wasn’t far behind.

The clumsier RainWing carelessly snapped twigs as he crashed into the bush with him, but the bird call he sounded was a perfect imitation of the crowned whitebarb, which lived nowhere near this section of the forest. A matching whistle answered, its echoes bouncing off the walls of the green canyon around them.

       “Ah! Just ahead,” Filo said before launching upwards in a burst of fruit and debris. Taro made his exit with more stealth, and soon they joined Jenjar in the center of a massive carrotwood. The knot of orange branches overhead kept water out, while the thick waxy leaves around them reduced most of the storm’s noise to a dull roar. Despite the situation, Taro felt the taut muscles in his wings relax. This was a safe hiding spot.

       Jenjar was wedged between a couple branches, her head angled to peer through a hole in their shelter. From here, a narrow sliver of the horizon could be seen whenever the sky briefly turned light blue. If it wasn’t for the lightning, the forest would be pitch black.

       “Where’s Razz?” Jenjar asked absently, eyes squinted as she tried to spot their targets.

       “Right here!” Razz’s youthful voice chirped, and she popped into their natural hut with a flurry of her berry colored wings.

       “Good,” Jenjar said, turning to face them with her spear raised. “Rest for a bit and gather your resolve. We’ll be moving out shortly.”

       Filo tilted his head. “Uh, how now?”

       “As long the NightWings are grounded, we have the upper claw. This is our forest. We know it best, and they can’t move through it like we can!” Her tail flicked meaningfully, and Filo muttered an oh before reaching hurriedly into his pouch to count his darts. He’d done that countless times on patrol. Taro figured it was a nervous habit. “We’ll go in quick and quiet, knock ‘em out, and then send word to Queen Glory to send in a retrievable team to transport them back.”

       “ _Retrieval_ ,” Razz corrected quietly, a grape poked through on the talon she held aloft.

       Taro watched Jenjar’s matter of fact nod, and whatever buzz he’d had for adventure earlier started to evaporate. This was just surreal. Faced with his patrol captain’s sheer determination to take this to a level out of their league, he felt like his super-soldiering fantasy was bleeding into the real world and at its center was a RainWing who thought she was Tsunami herself. It was delusional. It was dangerous. Reason took over fancy now, and he took a cautious step forward.

       “Jenjar, Filo’s the only one with darts, and there’s…eleven of them.” He was _pretty_ sure it was eleven. “How are we supposed to take them on if he can’t get a dart in before they realize what’s happening?”

       Jenjar’s horns tossed back and she smirked assuredly. “They’ll be _sleeping_. In a storm like this? Why would those monsters go out again?”

       Filo nodded creakily as if it made sense, but Taro was quick to shake his head. “They _just landed_ , and they’re on the run. They won’t be sleeping, they’ll be keeping watch. I bet they know they’re being followed.”

       Razz looked thoughtful.

       “They _can’t_ know we’re following them,” Jenjar answered slowly, her grip tightening on her weapon. He could see her eyeing him. He hated it when she did that. It made him feel stupid. “They can’t even see us! Besides, whether they know doesn’t matter. We still have the element of surprise. We’ll circle around and approach from the north while Filo flanks ‘em and puts ‘em all down at once!”

       “Yeah, wait, I – Uh – Nevermind,” was Filo’s aborted comment. He shifted nervously, claws rested over his pouch.

        “It sounds…” Taro trailed off and he hesitated. It seemed like he was always voicing his doubts to her, and he knew she didn’t appreciate it. But this was more important than guard duty. It paid to be cautious. Didn’t it? “It sounds like you’re taking us into combat, and I don’t think that’s a good idea. “

       On cue, she growled with exasperation. “Oh, I knew it! Taro! For the love of – “

       He pushed anyway, “We should wait for back up while they’re grounded and then surround them. That’s the safest way – “

       “How many times do I have to - Sometimes you have to take risks, Taro! We don’t have time to wait for back up. It took us two days to get here!”

       “And others may have followed behind us!” Taro argued quickly. “Everyone saw it when they escaped. We just happened to be the first to respond. Glory wouldn’t just let us fly off and disappear! Back up won’t be far behind - we’re kind of incompetent if you haven’t noticed! We need to wait!”

       Jenjar’s tail thrashed and she seemed to bite her tongue. Trying to keep a rational lilt to her voice, she replied, “I – we can handle this. We know them, Taro. This time we’re prepared.”

       “Maybe, but there’s eleven of them and four of us,” he reasoned.

       “We’ve got _venom_! Lots of it, as I recall!” Jenjar retorted sharply, gesturing pointedly to her mouth with all talons simultaneously. “They’re _afraid_ of us!”

       “Yeah, but you’re leading us into battle and I just don’t think you’re qualified to make combat decisions! Not two moons ago we were still in the healers’ huts. We were starved and weak. We’re still recovering, and I just don’t think –“

       “I WAS THERE LONGEST,” Jenjar shouted with a slam of her spear on the wooden floor, and the comment was followed by an ominous rolling from the sky that shook the tree from the ground up. Taro shut his mouth with a clack of teeth. “I was the one who lasted the longest, Taro,” she continued in a quiet fury. Her wings were raised, silhouetted against the dim light outside, and in those wings he could see the holes where she’d been pinned to Mastermind’s wall. “By the time I got there, all the ones before me were _dead or dying_. I know what hunger and weakness are. I knew all about it before you did, but I’m standing here now because I am stronger for it.” She raised a claw, snake-like, and pointed into the distance. “There are NightWings out there and they have a _plan_. There have been rumors going around for as long as they’ve been here, infesting our home with their ugly scales and jealous eyes. If it has anything to do with harming me or my tribe or my forest, I’m going to find it out and I’m going to stop them. If I’m willing and able to take them on in battle, Taro, _so should you be_!”

       Taro suddenly found it very hard to meet her gaze.

       She turned her claw at Razz, then Filo, both of whom shrunk into the shadows at her intensity.“You two don’t know, but you will. If we let them get away, I guarantee you they’ll be back and they’ll hurt you. _I won’t let that happen_.”

       There was a long moment of silence save for the sounds of the torrent outside, but the storm was now noticeably quieter. It seemed to Taro that they all realized this at once, and Jenjar spun to take a look.

       “Perfect,” she muttered. “The rain’s let up and we still have enough light to see. We move now.”

       All four RainWings slipped from the warm dark of their shelter back into the night. Alighting on the top of a neighboring carrotwood, they took a moment to glance northward over the sea of swaying leaves. Filo startled hard enough to nearly fall from his perch at what they saw.

       “Uh – It looks like they’re moving!” he observed with a small squawk. “They won’t break for anything!”

       Taro looked on as the mass they were hunting broke the distant tree line ahead of them. The V-shaped figures were barely discernible in the night.

       “What happens if the storm dies out?” Razz asked, eyeing the sky. “Then we can’t see them anymore.”

       “Then we stop. And _only_ then,” Jenjar determined, and then she spread her wings and was carried back into the sky.  In a moment she was gone except for a splash of tell tale orange on her back. Razz followed first, then Filo after an apprehensive sigh.

       This time around Jenjar picked up the pace, and Taro struggled to keep up. While the thunderheads seemed to be on break for now, the tempestuous skies were still chaotic. Six times he nearly crashed into Razz, and Filo couldn’t seem to keep his balance for longer than a few minutes. The rain splattered into their eyes, blurring their vision. But Jenjar floated above it all, or crashed right through it. She looked invincible.  

       It was during a brief lull in the storm that Taro realized something was wrong. He looked about, trying to figure out what the factors were before his eyes settled on Filo’s back. The rippling light from the dying clouds gave him an odd shadow, and he seemed to fade in and out of view. Taro looked to his right to find a similar effect on Razz’s scales, and water pelted all four of the RainWings leaving a faint outline in the downpour. His heart pounded against his ribs violently as the thought struck him – they could be seen. How hadn’t they noticed before? Were they really that exhausted? He flapped hard to gain altitude enough to see ahead and choked. His squad was closer to the NightWings now, close enough to see a few of them glancing over their shoulders directly at him.

He was absolutely sure that two of them were missing.

       “Jenjar!” he hissed in alarm, then louder, “Jenjar!”

       Razz gasped beside him having seen the same thing, “Where’d they go?”

       Taro nearly ran head first into his appointed leader when she halted midair to look around wildly. Filo immediately fumbled for his darts. A few fell out of his pack towards the ground.

       “THERE!” Razz bellowed, and as Taro turned to look a swooping black shape with bared yellow teeth and outstretched wings morphed from the shadows around her and swallowed her whole.

       “Razz!” Taro cried, but the NightWing clipped him and he spun out, a rough tail whacking into his side as it passed. He tried to catch himself but for a few terrifying moments he couldn’t tell up from down.

       From somewhere a frightening roar shook the air, followed by the screeching cry of a RainWing in pain. Taro whipped his head around to try to see who it was. His eyes locked onto a streak of fire in the dark and a strong wind forced his wings straight. Stabilized, he hovered briefly, looking on as Jenjar rammed the first NightWing in the back. It let go of Razz, whose hot pink form launched upwards towards Filo.

Taro’s body froze. As the clouds crashed again, overpowering the sounds of battle, the fight seemed to slow to a crawl. The sight was too familiar. Filo was a mix of sickly green and grey. Blood marred his scales from gashes in his arm and shoulder in a pattern like cracked rock. It looked as black as venom in the pale blue light of the angry sky.

       “ _Taro!_ Taro, help him, I got this one!” Jenjar shouted, her voice slamming him out of his reverie. Her crimson form fell passed him towards the canopy gripping the first attacker around the throat and snout from behind. The NightWing spat rage into the air, but she forced its head away from herself.

       Not twenty wingbeats away Razz met Filo’s NightWing head on, darting skillfully around the bigger dragon with outstretched claws. She beat her wings round its head and raked claws into the thinnest parts of its wing membranes. It reared back with a shout. Filo fell stiffly from its jaws and floated limply towards the forest. The sky seemed to dim as the monster let loose an arc of flame that came too close to the pink flier. Taro flinched, but she managed to get behind the other dragon and let loose a small flame of her own –a sticky black one. It was messily aimed, but splattered along the NightWing’s side. For a moment it looked confused, and then began to wail. Its screams echoed around him and in a slow fall, the giant twirled and writhed, blood arcing into the air. With an explosion of snapping twigs and leaves, the figure disappeared and its howls went with it.

       The first slivers of the grey light of morning peeked over the eastern horizon and lit upon a scene of silent stillness. Taro couldn’t believe the brutality with which the others fought. It was exactly what they’d been trained to do, of course but... It made him sick and proud at the same time, feelings he couldn’t quite resolve with the nightmare he’d just witnessed. Stunned, he drifted like a feather downwards before eventually landing on an outstretched branch. He sagged his weight against it, shaking.

Razz entered his line of sight, her claws wrapping around a broken limb where the NightWing had sunk into the emerald sea. Her amber eyes found him but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

       “ _Where’s the other one_?!”

       Jenjar burst from the wet green from off to the left like a small sun, yellow victory glowing in her scales. Her spear was gripped so tight in her claws that the color didn’t reach her knuckles. “Well?”

       Razz gestured below her and Jenjar nodded. As she passed, her eyes raked briefly over Taro’s form and she grimaced with disappointment. Taro realized with a jolt that he hadn’t aided them in battle. He felt very small.

       “And the rest of them?” Jenjar pressed, though the burst of red along her wings indicated she already knew.

       Razz inclined her head. “Gone. I don’t see them anywhere. They might have landed.”

       “Or blended with the clouds…” Jenjar’s tail flicked in thought as she eyed the retreating storm. “We defeated them quickly enough that we may still have time to catch up. You performed admirably,” she added with a wise air that reminded Taro uncannily of Grandeur.

       Razz ignored the patrol leader’s praise. She seemed shaken, but focused, a far cry from the somewhat naïve dragon Taro knew her to be normally. Did one battle make a warrior? “Where’s the NightWing you had?”

       “Dead. Soon as I could pull its teeth apart I spit down its throat and left it.”

       Taro shuddered, his eyes sliding shut. Jenjar sounded strange. Cold.

       “We’ll find them,” she continued assuredly. “But first we need to find out what their plan even was. That might give us a clue as to where they’re going. Is yours still alive?”

       “I think I can hear it.”

       “Let’s go.” Jenjar looked back at him, her eyes flat, her tone dismissive, “Taro, you can stay up here if you want.”

       Taro watched her slip down into the trees, but Razz lingered. She watched him with an unreadable and oddly serious expression for a long moment.

       “Filo will need your help,” she said.

       When she finally turned away to follow, Taro’s heart jumped with shock and guilt. The very end of her curled tail was gone.

       She hadn’t said a word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Jenjar gets even angrier and the others reflect on their current situation.

Taro shook himself from snout to wing tip. Razz either hadn’t noticed, or was hiding her pain. The sight chilled him to his bones.

‘ _Pull yourself together, Taro_ ,’ he coached himself, taking a deep breath. ‘ _You’re stronger than this. Where’s Filo? He’s hurt._ ’

He slowly released the air from his lungs and when he opened his eyes again his stomach lurched a little less. His resolve restored enough to push his focus towards his team, he spread his wings and took off for the aroyak tree where he’d last seen his mint green comrade.

Filo wasn’t there, though, nor at its base. Distress pulling at his heart, he scavenged along the ground cover for a while to no avail. Twice he had to force himself to still and regroup before his frustration turned to panic. The second time he was forced to pause, he noticed that the overcast light of the rising dawn and its accompanying heat was just strong enough on the forest floor to start flooding the woods with a wispy blanket of mist. He wasn’t going to find his fellow guard in the jungle right now with only his eyesight. The birds were still subdued by the storm and the sounds of dragon warfare, so in the quiet he let out his own whitebarb call.

It was warbly and sad, a little strangled. While it matched his mood, it wasn’t exactly the energetic trill he had aimed for. Luckily, a perfectly rendered call replied and Taro followed its pretty note to a wide bubbling stream.

“You, ah… aren’t very good at that, are you?” Filo’s low voice muttered when Taro stepped from the brush. An uneasy chuckle followed the comment. “I noticed during training. You just proved me right.”

The anxious RainWing’s appearance didn’t match the tune he’d just whistled at all. He was still an unhealthful color, like mold, and his wounds oozed. The crystal water at his feet carried droplets of blood away. Held in his talons was a piece of whitewrap, the naturally weaved sheets of absorbent fiber from the inner layers of a bladewood. The healers used them as emergency bandages and bedding, though Taro had rarely seen them used for wounds like this. Filo had it torn into strips and was trying to tie them around his right forearm.

“Did you wash it out?” Taro asked, coming closer. He took the whitewrap in his talons and judged the injury. Filo’s arm was gashed elbow to wrist, but it wasn’t bleeding as much as it had. It didn’t look broken.

“Yeah I did, like the healers said to do. I can walk on it, even of it hurts,” Filo answered. He held out his arm and Taro started to wrap it tightly. There were a few moments of silence between them.

“I’m sorry I didn’t – “ Taro started.

“I know, and it’s okay. We’ve never seen battle before, it was bound to happen.”

“But I could have –“

“Don’t blame yourself. They did something to you that you can’t help but experience again when they’re around. It’s – It’s not easy to just get over it.” He blinked a few times. “Not that I’d know. My fears are mostly imagined.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Memory’s more powerful than that. I think we might just be… out of our element.”

 Taro kept his eyes on the bandage, wondering how much it hurt, but Filo seemed fine if shaken. So Taro’s worries turned towards illness. Glory’s NightWing friend, Starflight, had clued the RainWings in on NightWing bites. There hadn’t been a case yet, but Starflight had warned that the rot in the NightWings’ mouths might even harm dragons. It was assumed by the guards keeping the NightWing camps that fresh fruit would wash that rot away, but NightWings had been living in squalor for a long time. A good portion of them kept up their old ways hunting animals in the forest and leaving them to die from a small wound. They only ate when it turned smelly. It was disgusting, and Taro feared this wound would be the end of Filo so far from home and healers.

“But I …I think Jenjar is _right_.”

Taro stopped mid-motion and stared.

“ _What?_ ”

Filo’s jaw worked as he sounded out what he wanted to say. “I…Look, she’s right. We have to stop them from… whatever it is they’re doing.” Filo looked both scared and frustrated, his words grew quick. “Some of them seem happy to eat fruit and wait until our Queen decides what she wants to do with them. If they behave, they might see the better of it. But most of them… Jenjar says they want to do this to all of us.” He gestured to his arm and shoulder. “She once told me they might even have made us slaves or worse. They don’t have a Queen, Taro, but if anyone ever decided to rule, do you think they’d hesitate to go back to doing what they’ve spent their lives working for? If Glory never came, we would have been sunning one moment, and the next we’d be dead.”

Taro blinked, unsure what to say. Filo made a valid point that he himself found hard to digest when he thought about it. If Glory hadn’t come, he would have died on the NightWings’ island alone and so hopeless he wouldn’t have had the spirit to feel terror. Given a second chance at living the life others had lost, he didn’t like looking back and remembering that there was a time when he’d have welcomed death without a fight. Glory changed everything. If anyone had asked him what loyalty or passion were before the Change, he would have gotten it wrong in his ignorance.  But the lack of loyalty or passion were not in question here. No, it was that these RainWings had learned the former too easily, and they had far too much of the latter.

Filo whispered his name, and Taro was brought out of his reverie. The other RainWing was tracing a seam on his pouch and sounded utterly ashamed as he finished, “Between you and me, I would have just gone home.”

He looked up, and Taro expected to see fear, but the fear he found wasn’t the kind that caused dragons to hide.

Taro wanted to argue, but he watched that strangely lost-found look harden into determination. So, he finished the wrap and covered it with leaves like he’d seen the healers do, tying it all up with a spare strip. The leftover whitewrap was bundled into a kit for Razz’s tail, and more was scraped from a nearby bladewood to be squirreled away into Filo’s bag, just in case. Filo grabbed some more vine and a firm twig for a splint, as well as a few herbs for a simple poultice. Had they had time when this fiasco started, they would have each grabbed a pack of their own from their watchtower full of these necessities. They should have, in Taro’s opinion, but Jenjar’s mighty call to arms was very difficult to argue with at the moment. She’d been the first in the air and would have gone alone, he didn’t doubt it.

“Here, put some fruit in there,” Taro said, and he left hurriedly to gather. He returned with claws full of large clumps of ripe gobbleberries and a few pricklepaws, which were more filling than they ought to be for their size.

“Won’t fit much more in here, but a few bites of food will do in a pinch,” Filo nodded, counting them once and then twice. “…I think.”

The little pack bulged with its new stockpile and flopped against the RainWing’s side as they both took off. Taro took the lead, weaving under and over vines on his way up. He looked back once to see Filo flying with some difficulty, perhaps loss of blood or just pain. But he seemed to be managing and so Taro broke the canopy and searched for where their ambush had turned into a victory. The gaping hole and snapped twigs weren’t hard to find, but the area was also marked by splashes of dark blood. Taro dove in and Filo followed.

From below were muffled sounds, like speech, but the owner of the voice and the tone were unknown to Taro until he landed on a fallen trunk and pushed his way through a curtain of dense bushes. On the other side, he stopped short find a deep crevice yawning at his toe tips covered by a web of hardy tree roots. The roots met at the middle, some thicker than others, where Razz sat nursing her tail before a massive heap of shining black scales. The NightWing lay on its side at the center of this naturally grown hammock, heaving wheezing breaths and painfully kneading anything it could get its claws into. The wide wound in its side still bubbled and Taro could see the faint outline of its ribs through what flesh was left. Its eyes were burgundy, widened to the whites, and they were trained on Jenjar whose body was from nose to tail a fearsome blood red. She held her spear at the NightWing’s wounds, a mad tension in her wings.

“What does this artifact do?” she was growling, poking the spear forward threateningly. “Where is it?”

The NightWing did its best to stay still, but it visibly cringed at the unspoken promise of more pain. It held out for a minute more until Jenjar reared back as if to plunge the spear into its side, and then it struggled to pull itself backwards.

“North! Far north. Beyond the Sky Kingdom!” it cried desperately with a whimper. Taro realized it was female and it probably had a past and maybe the other NightWing was her friend, but fitting what the NightWings were with an approachable identity just didn’t compute in his mind. On some level, he felt like he should know better, but NightWings were monsters and no more dragon than a spotted chameleon. 

“And!?” Jenjar pushed.

“I don’t know! The artifact is powerful, it would allow anyone to conquer any land they wanted if used right, but this is all I know of it! Please!”

Jenjar looked murderous but she managed to restrain herself and settle back on her haunches. Taro could almost hear her mind gnawing on what little information she’d chewed out of her captive. But Taro was unconvinced the NightWing was telling the whole truth. Something about the way it looked at them all – there was more cunning in that head than they had time to deal with. He doubted they’d get anything more detailed even if Jenjar did something awful. And he didn’t want to see Jenjar do _anything_ awful, even to a NightWing, if only then because he didn’t think his nerves could handle seeing her so violent.

A gentle touch brushed his side and he turned to find Filo holding his talons out for the whitewrap Taro had at some point, without knowing, taken out of the bag. He relinquished it and Filo sidled up to Razz to bundle her tail. Taro flinched looking at it – she would never swing in the trees again.

Razz’s focus wasn’t on herself, though. She was eyeing Jenjar with that same cool, calculating look she’d given Taro before.

“What happens now?” she asked their leader.

Jenjar huffed, looking over to finally acknowledge that her group was whole again. The red didn’t leave her scales.

“It is quickly becoming midmorning,” she said. “The NightWings have a lengthy head start. We might not catch them, but we can try.”

"And your NightWing? Is it dead?" Razz pressed.

"It decided roaring in my face was a good idea, so I had a good shot at its throat." Everyone except Jenjar cringed in unison. "I'd be surprised if it wasn't."

“W-We?” Taro couldn’t help but ask, desperate to grasp onto what little bit of a plan their leader might have. He regretted it immediately when her eyes turned on him.

“Did you not hear? Oh, wait, no you didn’t. You took your sweet time joining us.” Her tail lashed hard enough to send leaves and twigs flying, most of which fell through the holes in the roots and continued to fall until they disappeared into the darkness below. She gestured with her spear at the squirming, panting thing next to her. “ _This_ …and its fellows hatched a plan to take the rainforest in the event the volcano blew and their Queen fell. Their Princess is no ruler, so they’re acting on their own under one of their General’s command. General Rook. It’s just like I said, Taro. They’re coming back and they’re going to take everything away because they can’t do it like everyone else does. They can’t be bothered to ask and share because they’re _so_ superior. I’m sick of it. _Sick of it_!” 

She spun to face the NightWing and bared her venomous fangs. It shrunk back, a great python frightened of a little bright-skinned frog.

“I would drip venom onto your disgusting hide for hours, _Warmonger_ ,” she hissed. Her voice trembled with the force of her promise. “I would _flay_ you for the ambush alone… But I don’t have time, and you aren’t going anywhere.” She settled back, arcing her wings grandly to either side. She added with no small amount of satisfaction, “You have my permission, on behalf of _Your_ Queen Glory, to lie here in my forest _and rot_.”

And with that, she shot for the sky once again.  The web they stood on shivered as if it would come undone and the NightWing briefly panicked, but then the branches settled and the forest was again quiet.

Taro looked to his other RainWings, a knot in his chest. Razz’s tail was now bound, and she sat stock still next to Filo. Both of them shared a look of deep concern. For a long time all three of them just stared somberly into the middle space, heads bowed, as if they were all paying silent respect to the way things used to be; that a couple days’ travel hadn’t Changed anything. And the NightWing panted away, barely a threat. Taro didn’t think he could feel any more mixed up than he felt right now. His heart swelled with pride and embarrassment at once in the face of two RainWings who had never seen what he and Jenjar had. And yet they were both here. One of them won her first battle alone and with great skill. The other braved the aftermath of his attack with a dignity and grim acceptance Taro hadn’t thought possible in someone so new to all of this. It made him wonder if he really thought of himself  as something so special? If maybe he’d inadvertently gotten the wrong idea about how his experience had altered him? He was no better than any other RainWing just because they didn’t share his experience. He was no more courageous than he’d ever been, and Jenjar couldn’t be more vengeful…

Cued by some unknown signal, they all snapped out of their thoughts at once and lifted into the air in concert. 

All the way up to the topmost greywood boughs Taro could feel the NightWing’s eyes on his back. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story now has an open beta policy! Please feel free to provide suggestions and corrections in a comment and I’ll make adjustments as I see fit. Any constructive criticism is appreciated and will be considered carefully to see if it fits my plans for this story! Grammar errors and other technical corrections will be edited with time.
> 
> ...Also, I just gotta say, it feels like the plot is moving so /quickly/. Is that normal?? Is it too quick? I have no idea.

 

“Where is she?” Filo asked over the wind. The midday sun was doing him good, though he looked very uncomfortable with the weight of his pack bumping against him. “We’ve been flying so long now.”

“She wouldn’t have stopped, and she’d be flying faster than ever,” Razz pointed out. “She shouldn’t lose it like this…” she added to herself.

Taro was about to agree when the fog of distance cleared enough that he caught sight of what lie ahead.

“Hey! Hey, look!” Filo exclaimed in delight, his pained expression disappearing from his face.

In the distance, against a sky that no longer held a trace of clouds, was a mountain topped horizon without a hint of the deep jewel green Taro was used to anywhere. Instead, vast grassy plains stretched from where the rainforest stopped to where the hills started in the west. The most prominent feature, however, was a wide sparkling river that cut cleanly through the picturesque view starting somewhere at the rainforest’s edge far to the east and stretching north in a weaving flow. Its path curved west several days’ flight away before curving sharply east again, like a sleepy dragon's droopy neck. A few glistening streams lazily branched from the main river as it curled through the windswept terrain, and all around them the soil grew dark as sun dried dirt turned to almond colored mud. Beyond that, marking the outskirts of what must be the Mud Kingdom, were long low rocky steps, like a shallow staircase, which slowly gave way to marshes as far as the eye could see.

Taro was in awe of it all, losing altitude. He didn’t have the mind to do more than glide.

“I’ve never been to the edge of the rainforest before,” he breathed.

Off to his side, he saw Filo shaking his head.

“Me neither. Never bothered,” he said, and Razz hummed in agreement.

It took several minutes more, but they soon found that the rainforest ended abruptly. The ground rose from somewhere east, propping the border of their land up on a steep cliff to overlook the lands beyond. They hovered over the sheer drop drinking in the sight of this new world until Taro spotted Jenjar bathed in the light of the sun. His sense of space was in a whirl, so at first he mistook her for a large dandelion, vivid yellow as she was against the knoll she sat upon. But her rigid stance and her wind-shivered wings gave her away. Bringing his own wings close, he dove towards the cliff face, pulling up at the last second to land gently nearby. The other two touched down soon after, and together they regarded her silently. Once again they were humbled by her ferocious presence.

“There they are,” she said faintly after a breath. Up ahead were the NightWings, clustered in a bunch like a flock of blackbirds against the blue sky. Each was no bigger than the tiniest bat, they were so far away. They had gotten quite a lead on their RainWing pursuers but with no more trees to hide in and little cover on the ground at least they could still be tracked by sight.

Taking a visible deep breath, Jenjar soon turned to study each of her companions.

“I don’t expect any of you to come with me,” she said, her temper mellowed for the moment. There was a note of apprehension in her voice, and Taro felt like he could sympathize. Here she was at the precipice of yet another major change in her life. He didn’t think she had to take it, but she felt she didn’t have a choice. And yet when her eyes locked onto him, all he could see was rough edges and an eerie focus. Somewhere in there was something like the sweet blue flowers she used to love to tend, but it was something easily broken, already splintered. It made his breath catch in alarm to see it. “But I’m leaving. I may not come back but I’ll do my best.”

She looked hopefully at Razz, but the berry colored RainWing lowered her gaze. Jenjar straightened. Apparently, her statement wasn’t entirely true. She _expected_ at least one follower, one she believed could fight, but Razz was obviously done with this adventure.

“Alright. At least make sure Queen Glory is informed as quickly as possible,” she said with heavy disappointment. She spread her wings. “…And make sure she’s protected. She thinks her two NightWing friends aren’t a threat, but _we_ know better.”

She dropped like a stone down the cliff face disappearing from sight until she could be seen far below, sailing north on the afternoon winds. Taro stared after her lonely form, then found himself gaping when Filo stepped forward too.

“This is goodbye then,” he said softly. Like earlier, his voice didn’t hold a lot of conviction, but his eyes did. Taro had expected this, but didn’t want to believe it would happen. The RainWing smiled at Razz, who looked completely blank, and then he was gone too.

Taro felt utterly beside himself with indecision. Razz was shifting uncomfortably nearby, and the bandages around her tail were bright red. She definitely had to go back. But what about him? If he could do it without consequences, he would turn back too, and yet he felt so cowardly even entertaining the thought. So that left the question: what was the _right_ thing to do? Stiff, he weighed the options with such focus he didn’t notice Razz watching him. He also didn’t notice when her eyes lit with realization and confused wonder. She turned away. Startled by the sound of shivering branches, he looked up to see her pink silhouette shrinking into the green distance. He shuddered. She knew his choice before he did, and left him to his stupidity. 

A surge of resentment and anger hit him then. It burst like a star before falling to a simmer in his chest. There was no understanding Jenjar, as desperately as he tried. She seemed to have been teetering precariously over an edge for a while and now quite literally decided to leap off. If there was anyone he could, maybe should, give up on now it was her. Whether she succeeded or failed, her bravado was grounded in anger, and her actions would probably be seen as foolish by those with any sense. But Filo was a different story. He was injured, exhausted, and really doing what he thought was right. The smart thing to do would be to go home and hopefully intercept a large enough number of reinforcements on the way to send after them. And yet Taro couldn’t shake the thought that these two would need all the venom they could get and here he was, the only one who could add to their numbers. Maybe just one could make a difference. Maybe just one could bring them home.

He looked into the rainforest one more time. The high sun sent wreaths of white mist into the air that curled into the wind like wispy clouds. From where he stood, the chirps and buzzing of wildlife reached him, so familiar a sound he’d taken it for granted even after Glory rescued him. But the bright abyss behind him was silent. _I’ll see home again_ , he decided. If nothing else, he could cling to the hope that he could make that come true.

Into the airy sunlight he leaped, achy wings finding relief in the strong currents that immediately pushed him towards the horizon. He set his sights on the distant river and dove.

“I can’t believe it!” Filo yelled when a flash of teal appeared at his side. Taro watched as he managed to stumble mid-flight and drop a tail’s length out of the sky. “I was so sure you’d stay back!”

Taro wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but pushed his discomfort aside.

“I figured I’m the only reinforcement you guys have at the moment,” he replied, matching the other RainWing’s pace.

Filo looked behind, his orange eyes roving the sky for any more followers. He seemed to be a little disappointed, but Taro couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just imagining it. “Razz went back instead.”

It wasn't a question.

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” Filo studied him a moment, almost critically, but before Taro could become wary the other smiled and said, “I think you’re a little crazy, but you’ll do for now.”

Taro grinned in turn, but quickly schooled his expression when he caught Jenjar peering over her shoulder from up ahead. Orange appeared once again in her scales, electric spikes shooting down her sunshine yellow spine with no effort on her part at hiding them. She tossed her head and gave a hard flap in frustration but she made no move to speak to him.

“I think she’s starting to resent you,” Filo stated from his left.

“No kidding,” Taro deadpanned. It was a long time coming. She thought he was a stick in the mud the day they met, but it only got worse when subsequent conversations on patrol revealed his more cautious approach to problems.

“You point out flaws in her thinking. She didn’t like that before, she’s definitely not liking it now,” Filo finished. They flew in silence a few minutes and then he drifted a bit to put some room between them.

Filo didn’t seem to think too hard on his observation, but Taro was definitely second guessing himself for his choice. Taro believed in Jenjar based on the peaceful, colorful memory he had of her as she was before her capture. That memory was quickly fading to gray.

He watched her determined form in the distance until nightfall.

 

**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**

 

The wind worked against them, blowing from the north, but the first three days passed quickly anyway. There was little variation in the scenery except for a herd of unusual animals and a tiny village of a type Taro had never seen before, but he passed them too quickly for a second look. The three RainWings had blown their cover back in the forest, but they continued to keep themselves as invisible as they could manage while flying low to the ground for maximum camouflage. They did their best to keep their shadows buried in the grass below.

The distant flock of NightWings was both a motivator and a test of resolve in the race to catch up to them. The small RainWing patrol ate portions of their rations in the morning and at dusk, and walked for miles at night under the moons before settling down for a few hours rest. The moment there was enough light to navigate, they were up and stretching their sleep-stiffened wings into a shape resembling something capable of flight.

But by day four Jenjar began to show signs of slowing down, and by day five they had run out of fruit.

“Don’t worry,” Jenjar said as the three of them eyed Filo’s near empty pack. Dawn was far enough away that two moons were still shining bright and she had finally decided it was time to sleep. “Anything you can catch in your talons _without stopping_ is fair game.”

Filo and Taro exchanged a glance. Taro didn’t like the statement’s not-so-subtle command, but couldn’t argue it either, considering their mission. Filo, on the other claw, had begun to look a bit sallow. He had kept up his energy so far by sneaking a berry or two during the day when they had enough that a few missing went unnoticed, but the hurried pace wasn’t doing him much good. There wasn’t much to be done, though, and Taro felt that if Filo got ill they had at least gone as far as they could, that they had done their part. Surely Jenjar would consider turning back then.

“The river is a couple days out still,” Filo had replied. “We can fish there.”

Jenjar was already shaking her head before he finished.

“I don’t think I’d eat anything out of that river,” she declared with a thump of her tail. “Don’t know if you smell it, but the wind is carrying something awful. Either it’s NightWing filth or the water.”

Taro had started to smell it too. Every day that they got closer, the stronger the river smelled. Gusts from the east carried an earthier scent, and sometimes a smell like bad eggs, but the water bordering the brown lakes of MudWing territory was more distinct. It permeated the air around them and lingered most notably when they settled in the grass to sleep.

“Jenjar, can you promise we’ll stop for food and water when we get to the river?” Taro asked cautiously. “Even if we have to take the time look for fruit instead of fishing, we need to stop.”

As the patrol leader eyed him, Taro saw Filo swallow thickly while waiting for an answer. He noted his own thirst. Fruit never left a RainWing thirsty, but suddenly all they had were bandage wrappings and darts. It was such an _internal-ish_ sensation, like his very bones would walk him to water all by themselves even if he was a withered husk. The plains were just so dry; it hadn’t rained in days. And yet, all three of them had to push through it to get to the water their bodies needed, dirty or not. Thirst certainly didn’t bring around good memories but they needed to be strong.

“Even if the NightWings get to it first?” Jenjar finally answered. She had a growl in her throat that was more stubborn than angry.

Taro withheld a sigh. Whether the NightWings would get there first shouldn’t be in question at this point. “Even if the NightWings bathe in it and the water turns black, we _need to stop_. Jenjar, please. We won’t survive without food. We’ll gather as fast as we can.”

“Please?” Filo chimed, cradling his arm.

Jenjar looked between them for a long time and Taro was amazed to witness the war on her face. He was glad it was there, but at the same time it shouldn’t require this much thought.

“Fine,” she frowned, her voice flat, and the taut muscles in Taro’s wings relaxed in relief. He and Filo shared in a tired smile. “Be ready to move out when I say.”

 

**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**

 

They didn’t make it to the river. All their fears and the consequences of their rushed decisions fell on them at once.

The next night the wind began to blow from the south just as the moons began to cross the sky. They walked for hours in the gentle breeze, their wings dragging through the dirt, before finally settling in to rest. Exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and thoroughly aching the trio slept curled under dewy boughs of tall grass.

It was in the early morning hours, just as the first ray of light touched the sky, that a slow bubbling sound surprised Taro into groggy consciousness. He felt warmth first, on his back, then wet under his chin and in his claws. And then a deep rumble and the feeling of being watched shot prickles down his back. There was someone standing over him, sniffing, growling.

Taro’s eyes snapped open to find Filo staring back at him. Dark-tinted blood oozed from his injured arm around the bandages. Along his neck was a deep gash and his head lay upside down, at odds with his body which lay limp and gray. His throat bobbed wetly.

"...So sorry..." He gagged. "Taro..."

His one visible eye stilled like they had gone blind and as Taro watched the quiet bubbling faded away. Filo was dead, and Taro lie in his spilled blood.

He was so shocked that when the hot grasp of NightWing talons closed around his own neck he didn’t react, but an anguished scream blasted through his skull and the talons’ grip instantly loosened. With a clamorous thump, the NightWing and Jenjar rolled into the grass to his left and Taro sprang to his feet.

For a second his wings fluttered indecisively, he danced unsure what to do with himself, his eyes glued to Filo’s body. _But we cleaned it,_ he _cleaned it, he said he did!_ He thought in a scramble. _Like the healers said! I knew it - he was so sure, so sure - I knew this would happen!_

And then he didn’t have time to think because the NightWing was on top of him, and then Jenjar, and then he was upside down and there was pain in his side. Jenjar was still screaming, caught somewhere between horror, grief, and fury, her scales bright as the sun against the shadow that was their stalker. They'd been surprised, _again_ , as if none of them had thought they could be ambushed, as if the thought hadn't crossed their minds. But it had, many times, and what little preparations they could do without forest trees and vines and traps still weren't enough. They were too tired, they'd been pushed too hard, and they were too green around the ears. He had _known_ this.

A startled roar of pain split the darkness and the crushing weight ground him into the dirt. A terrified shriek ripped from his throat. He clawed at the dark mass, his first attempt at retaliation, but the scales were rock hard and he felt so weak. It pushed him into the ground again and again, struggling with its opponent, and he could hear Jenjar somewhere overhead.

"You wanted our venom, have it! HAVE IT!" she shouted viciously.

Black liquid rained into the grass around them but the NightWing wasn't letting up. Why hadn't she killed it yet? Why couldn't Taro get his own mouth open? He couldn't breathe, his talons couldn't get a grip, his ribs creaked -

There was a sick crunch and the weight was suddenly gone, replaced by the dim morning sky. Taro gulped air and the sharp scent of leaves decaying rapidly filled his nose. Filo was still there, still staring, still dead, but Jenjar wasn't too far away. She too was lying still, her spear stuck into the ground near her body. Taro thrashed his way to his feet to get to her but he tripped and stumbled. His stomach flipped. With eyes wide he took in two - _two!_ \-  black shapes standing too close, one as huge as the NightWing Jenjar had left to die but whose wings were speckled with silver spots. The other was smaller with a broken horn. Both seemed to shimmer in and out of the remaining shade of night but neither dragon was looking at him. Their eyes were trained beyond him.

For a horrible moment Taro was sure there was a third one behind him and he spun to meet the NightWing who would slash his throat too, but his eyes were met with a blinding blue-white light instead. He cried out and shrank into himself.

It was a dragon, scales white as a lotus in bloom, but jagged like bolts of lightning. The rising sunlight glanced across its wings causing them to glimmer and accentuated a physique like a great cat. Horns like harshly twisted branches swept back from its head, and many smaller spines trailed down its neck and tail; both delicate and terribly sharp. This dragon was as large as any NightWing Taro had ever seen, but bright and beautiful.

With a hiss the dragon opened its mouth, revealing a blue forked tongue arching back towards its throat. As if the world had shaken the NightWings fell backward, wings clamoring, desperate to dodge the attack about to be blasted their way. With little control, Taro hurried shakily backwards and knocked into Filo. He fell to his side into the foliage to avoid stepping on him. It was from under tall blades of grass he could see the speckled NightWing fight for enough lift to take it into the clouds but blue beams of a million tiny stars hit its thigh, its wings, and its side.

In moments its black scales shivered over with a creeping gloss and the dragon dropped into the dirt like an overturned boulder. Out of the white dragon's range, the smaller NightWing scooped Jenjar up and took off. Taro could see her head lolling as it flew away, growing ever smaller, and his heart felt like it was being violently squeezed.

Then a darkness like a thousand NightWings descended upon him.

 

 


End file.
